Macklemore's cool, but sorry, seattle is not running hip-hop. And to be honest, Blue Scholars are kinda wack, I used to like them alot when I was younger but Geo isn't a very good mc, and Saabzi's production has gotten kinda stale.

I wouldn't say that seattle, or the northwest, is even close to running hip-hop. I would however say there are some good things going on here. Scholars brought recognition, but now they're kinda played out. Macklemore is new and still pretty fresh, and I could see him blowing up with some continued creativity, and him continuing to kill his live sets. Dude is electric live. Couple others I'm liking from the area are D.Black, Shabazz Palaces, Grynch, KnowMads, Grieves (all Seattle), Serge Severe, and I just heard Epp from TxE, last night, and he sounded like a solid MC to me (those two guys are PDX). Like I said, Seattle isn't running anything, but they are putting some decent content out.

until it drops, you can listen to the whole album here. it's pretty fucking good. i've been a huge macklemore fan and even i was impressed. some great features on it too....absoul, schoolboy q, the lead singer from band of horses